The Whiteboard

Robert Harvey

4:00 PM

And an MSDN subscription.

@ThomasOwens Quality of life comes first.

Duga

This is probably a better question for either the Programmers SE or CodeReview SE sites — valverij 45 secs ago

Robert Harvey

We spend too much time at work to be miserable.

Thomas Owens

@RobertHarvey I would expect if the company used .NET that they would have that as an internal resource.

psr

@JimmyHoffa Great. This invalidates some of my excuses for not learning Haskell. I've still got "anywhere I try to actually use this it will be rejected as unmaintainable" though.

Thomas Owens

I'm more interested in my own professional development. Things that I can use outside of the company to further myself or my careers.

psr

4:08 PM

Atom 1.0 is out. Has anybody worked with Atom? (Their elevator pitch is that it's on-par feature-wise with something like Sublime, but as hackable as Emacs. It's written in Chromium (to be usable locally) and node.js with some C++ glue, but it's mostly made up of node modules, so to hack it you just need to be able to write node modules.

Thomas Owens

@psr I expected this to be about the thing that was like RSS, not an editor.

Ampt

It's... an editor?\

downloading

installer is nice

ok.. it installed but didn't ask me for anything or have me click anything

interesting

never used sublime, but this seems pretty nice

nice color support

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey not control flow, the publishing is broadcasting messages through IPC, and the process continues on. Other processes listen for certain messages and respond to them

@psr yeah, I just thought that was a really great tutorial and I'm amazed how identical PureScript is to Haskell

@psr I'll give it a peak... will be doing some javascript work soon, but I'm more inclined to stick with emacs for it. Would be hard to get me out of emacs or visual studio frankly

there's a variety of things I really dislike about sublime; largest of which the "this folder is my workspace!" folders have lots of shit in them

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa I didn't realize you had such traumatic brain damage. I'm sorry to hear that.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt I don't have to listen to the two of you! Stop spinning! Just leave me alone!

Ampt

4:23 PM

@JimmyHoffa this has the same folder-is-workspace mentality

maybe you should have some cleaner folders :P

Robert Harvey

[Makes popcorn]

Jimmy Hoffa

nah... it's not even that.. don't really recall what made it irritating, either way I'll try this atom thing and see what I think

perhaps it was that with sublime if you want to open something from another folder, you have to open another sublime

psr

@JimmyHoffa It ships with a lot of the emacs key bindings as the default. I believe the main author is a big emacs fan, but wanted to bring it to the unbearded JavaScript masses.

Ampt

ugh. Deletes Atom

there is an ignore setting to hide files you don't care about

similar to like a gitignore

Robert Harvey

That's a bad thing? Just don't use the setting?

Duga

4:30 PM

I'm not understanding your question but it seems like it the question doesn't have to do with code. Perhaps programmers.SE, graphicdesign.SE, or maybe UX.SE — vihan1086 10 secs ago

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt can you open 2 folders without opening another Atom?

Ampt

yep

"Add project folder" under file

Jimmy Hoffa

emacs can have as many folder browsing buffers as you like, visual studio solutions can be pointed at any number of disparate folders, so I think that got on my nerves with sublime

pah! C-w does the wrong thing, emacs bindings my eye

I can't C-x,Left...

Ampt

oh man, it looks just as good at stupid-DPI settings as well

I like it

Jimmy Hoffa

github.com/fuqcool/atom-emacs-mode

> This package is no longer under maintain. Because I realized that there is nothing in this world can replace Emacs. Happy hacking!

Robert Harvey

4:41 PM

Pfft.

Ampt

yeah... that hasn't been changed since sept. of last year

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa Do you always use just one, and only one, logging service?

(I hesitate to use the word Singleton, because Singleton)

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey lately I use log4net, let things hit the local log file, and have an appender that tosses them to an MQ, and let other services subscribe to the MQ to stick things in DBs or do other stuff. I typically put a static constructor in my classes that create a logger for their class type so you can get the log4net class filtering for development it's nice to know there's an error in QA, go turn on the trace level logging for a specific class that's having issue

trace logging on an entire application is just too damn much to wade through when you're just doing your typical development break/fix cycle

Robert Harvey

A static constructor. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you inject the logger?

I don't guess that makes sense if it's a static constructor.

And I never quite understood why you would ever want to inject a logger, unless you have multiple loggers.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey that's why, it's an option, I just don't really think there's a lot of purpose... private static ILog _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(whatever)) is really enough, and there's no reason to have multiple loggers when you use one like log4net that sends your messages to multiple loggers already per configuration..

psr

5:08 PM

@JimmyHoffa That's fantastic.

Telastyn

5:44 PM

that's vomitous.

though the MQ is nice

Thomas Owens

5:55 PM

Everything is better with MQ.

Jimmy Hoffa

6:14 PM

@Telastyn ? the non-injected logger?

Duga

6:36 PM

A question about a broken algorithm might be a better fit for Programmers SE -- once upon a time, we had a "Too Localized" close reason here on SO (for something so specific to an individual use case it would never help anyone else on the site); that one's gone, but the idea that an issue should be isolated enough to have a specific piece of unexpected behavior that's already been isolated from the rest of the program is still part of the rules/ethos here. — Charles Duffy 29 secs ago

durron597

20k delete votes pls: programmers.stackexchange.com/a/289847/88986

@MichaelT @gnat @GlenH7 I found that using Blaze: erwaysoftware.com/blaze/#

Seems really cool

user114359

@durron597 That whole question will be deleted soon anyway

durron597

@Snowman yeah probably.

Thomas Owens

6:53 PM

How do people make plans? All my friends either make plans a week or so out from when they want to do something or very last minute. And if I want to do something, some people expect to know in advance, but I may not want to do it when the day rolls around.

psr

@ThomasOwens In my case my wife has made plans for pretty much all the rest of the summer by now. Thus, I have made plans. This may not work for people not married to my wife.

Thomas Owens

How do people do that? What if something comes up at work? Or you just don't feel like doing it anymore?

psr

@ThomasOwens I don't think those circumstances are part of my wife's world. She would see those questions as just crazy talk.

durron597

@psr Probably especially the last one

user114359

@psr That is the married life. Also, she tells me "July 12, 2024 at 7:30 PM we have plans and if you forget there will be hell to pay."

psr

7:03 PM

@ThomasOwens I'm more in your camp. I think the difference is how you feel about risk of being stuck with nothing to do vs having something and not feeling like it.

@Snowman You get told before hand about the hell to pay part? Must be nice.

durron597

@psr Just buy your wife a video game console

user114359

@psr No, after being burned enough times I just assume. Sort of like how I assume that trying to ride a tiger like it is a pony will end up poorly for me.

user55340

I worry for our future when even native speakers (I assume) don't care enough to consistently capitalize 'i' or have "THanks".

durron597

@MichaelT Can you help me find the meta post about allowing people to flag for closure after they run out of CVs

user55340

> Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.

user114359

7:13 PM

@MichaelT I firmly believe that our language is under assault and will eventually die from its wounds thanks to those young kids who refuse to get off our lawns and stop using txt-speak.

user55340

9

Q: I'm out of close votes. Can I use my flags?

I'm out of close votes again today. But I still have 100 flags. How do the mods feel about me flagging questions for closure, even though I would be able to VtC myself, if I weren't already out of votes? Related: How do the mods feel about me flagging a question for closure (a super obvious code...

durron597

Nice. I gave up on MSE, I found this on MSO: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/260730/…

However, I was actually looking for a request for a privilege "allow me to CV flag (as a user with less than 3k rep would) questions after I run out of CVs"

(NOT moderator flag)

user55340

I know it was out there. I don't see it.

Jimmy Hoffa

@psr this sounds eerily familiar... to be fair, I don't really want to do planning, so it works out that I end up with things to do and not having to plan any of it

@Snowman I learned a neat trick from a friend, first time you have to hang a door after buying a house, hang it totally crooked so it won't even shut - never get asked to fix anything again. In the same way, my wife has utterly given up on the idea that I'll remember anything, ever. Often she doesn't even tell me ahead of time claiming I wouldn't remember anyway

user41796

So I was doing a happy dance since the project managers moved to a different part of the building. Then the marketing guy moved in. :-(

user55340

7:21 PM

I will point out that stuffing more into the queue without close votes doesn't help anything unless the queue is going downward trend.

user143252

@durron597 i speak hindi , and little bit english

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 just put a new bottle of scotch in his desk every day, pretty soon he'll just show up and be snoring at his desk by 10 then you can actually work

user41796

Hmmmmm.....

durron597

@MichaelT Yeah, dunno

user55340

If the queue is trending upward on count, it just makes it harder to close things and discourages people seeing it

user41796

7:23 PM

@JimmyHoffa Drinking OTJ is a terminable offense here though. So that may not play out quite as envisioned.

durron597

14

Q: Reviewing a flagged question should allow me to flag Exact Duplicates even when I'm out of close votes

As we know, it's By-Design that flags for closing as exact duplicates are converted to close votes when the person has the power to close. All is as it should be. Problem However, when that person runs out of close votes, they can no longer flag exact duplicates (that option is taken away). I ...

feature-request status-declined review flags

user55340

user55340

Ahh. Exact duplicate only. And no close vote tag. Why I didn't find it.

user41796

@MichaelT I saw that the other day - I'd love to find something like that in my neck of the woods

user55340

Did you see the name of the shop?

user41796

7:27 PM

nope

user55340

vomfassusa.com

user41796

@MichaelT Cool, thanks.

user114359

@JimmyHoffa My wife understands I have a terrible memory, but she still gets annoyed when I forget stuff.

user41796

I've been slammed with work lately and scouting stuff with the kids

user55340

There are some scattered about. Might be one within driving distance.

user41796

7:32 PM

Yeah, I already checked their locations. :-)

user114359

@gnat I could get behind marking subjective questions as a duplicate of How would you know if you've written readable and easily maintainable code? if the answers on that question were not so generic and useless: code review comes back clean, essentially.

user114359

In response to your comment on Should the order of definitions correspond to the order of declarations in header/source files?

durron597

8

Q: Allow marking questions as duplicate even when out of close votes

Now that we have a great UI for allowing people to close their own questions as duplicates, I think we should be able to offer that UI to people even if we are out of close votes. Proposal: if out of close votes, if you click close, allow the user to choose the "duplicate" close reason. This wil...

feature-request vote-to-close exact-duplicates

enderland

@Snowman some of my non-kid coworkers use this language too

user114359

@enderland You know what really grinds my gears? When adults use that language in work emails.

enderland

7:39 PM

@Snowman that's what I was thinking of...

Jimmy Hoffa

7:52 PM

@GlenH7 he's in marketing, the only thing your claim means is he isn't getting caught

enderland

@GlenH7 depends on what your goals are. Is possessing a terminable offense? or just drinking? is your goal to get him.. ah, relocated out of your company? ;)

gnat

@Snowman well as for me, I tend to refer this canonical when askers look for comparing two (three, four...) ways of doing something without explaining their needs and preferences. Subtler kind of shopping / Gorilla vs Shark. "Tell me anything you know about Nikon and Canon and I will pick what I like. ...no I won't tell you what I like, just feed me everything you know" -- this stuff is typically on the cliff of too broad

psr

@GlenH7 Hopefully Madmen will cure places of these outdated creativity killing policies.

user114359

@gnat Maybe I should VTC as POB and link to Gorilla vs. Shark.

enderland

Man I really wish I could use markdown formatting in Outlook...

or gmail shortcuts

user114359

7:58 PM

Need more CVs:

user114359

-4

Q: Do you have any project idea for cloud computing and big data?

I have a cloud computing class and professor did not give me any specific idea. all what he said is that "I think you should pick a big dataset, and try to mine it with mapreduce to come up with interesting results". I wanna more details and I wanna to do it within three weeks. Do you have sugge...

programming-languages project cloud-computing hadoop

user114359

I used my last one on that question

gnat

@Snowman I am typically tempted to link it too. However, I feel like in coding-style stuff, straightforward labeling Gorilla-vs-Shark sort of bends common sense

@Snowman no, needs more DVs. It's a shame that we're so less critical than (usually more lenient) SO folks at this "question"...

... cross-posted, deservedly voted down to -10 and closed at SO: stackoverflow.com/questions/31459743/… — gnat 16 mins ago

^^^ it's at -12 over there now

user55340

Mine StackOverflow and come up with a result set which illustrates the percentage of questions asking for project ideas. — Trobbins 3 mins ago

gnat

1

A: At what point are comments classified as rude or offensive for off-topic questions

When the question itself is highly inappropriate, "flag the whole page" approach seems to make most sense to me - especially if you take into account that letting the question hang in there leaves a wide open door for more inappropriate comments, even after removal of those that are there already...

> If one worries about snarky comments in posts like that, well the real solution is simply to delete these posts - the sooner the better. Whatever comments are there will be deleted along the way, making it not an issue.

user55340

8:05 PM

My delete vote is already there.

user114359

@MichaelT I will vote to delete... in three days :-(

gnat

@Snowman in two! I know, I'll wait too :)

user55340

@GlenH7 and @RobertHarvey can do it now. @amon too. Of course could always get a diamond.

ratchet freak

meh rhoomba will take care of it

gnat

@ratchetfreak I prefer stuff like that to go off the horizon faster than roomba kicks in. While it's visible, some random visitor may stumble over it and think like "it's there, means it's allowed, low score is just bad luck, I may be luckier, lemme try". Broken windows and such...

user55340

8:15 PM

One of the complaints that I hear of p.se is that everything on the front page or newest is down voted. If we can clear the garbage faster, our better posts show for longer.

durron597

cv-pls programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/289047/…

enderland

it blows my mind how many questions here sneak by without getting closed

durron597

cv-pls programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/288521/…

gnat

1

Q: There are way more negative votes in the top 50 questions than positive. Time to think

I am a software lead in a company and I would say I am a seasoned professional. Nevertheless I find myself scared to ask questions here, A look on the page of the first 50 newest questions counts: 24 questions are downvoted 13 questions are upvoted 13 neutral It is either that the site is att...

discussion

durron597

cv-pls programmers.stackexchange.com/q/287573/88986

user55340

8:17 PM

I also want material for "refund close votes"

durron597

cv-pls programmers.stackexchange.com/q/283040/88986

Can anyone explain to me the history of this question: programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/140776/…

user55340

programmers.stackexchange.com/posts/140776/revisions

user55340

programmers.stackexchange.com/posts/140776/timeline

durron597

That doesn't really help. I'm stunned a moderator protected it without just nuking it.

gnat

@durron597 37K views

durron597

8:27 PM

@gnat Historical lock?

gnat

@durron597 hard to tell, at -5

ratchet freak

+9/-14

gnat

but, well, maybe

user114359

Could be a useful signpost too, does anything point to it as a duplicate?

ratchet freak

no linked question in the side bar

gnat

8:28 PM

@ratchetfreak voting suggests meta effect, maybe folks piled in chat. Bikeshedding sometimes gets caught. Pity that it happens so infrequently

ratchet freak

time of voting (around time of protect) does suggest meta effect

that's when 6 of the downvotes happened

gnat

@ratchetfreak couldn't find traces at our meta. But then, it could be referred eg from MSO / MSE. Hard to tell

user55340

It got an answer 25 min earlier.

user55340

10:51 answer.
11:13 protect

user55340

It had been ignored for a year prior.

ratchet freak

8:33 PM

so it jumped to the frontpage then

user55340

Yep.

user55340

Each time it hit the front page it got some down votes.

ratchet freak

just got a set of downvotes?

chat effect I guess?

user55340

Yep.

user114359

@ratchetfreak I added my downvote to the pile.

user55340

8:36 PM

Anon feedback on the question is +41/-21

ratchet freak

@MichaelT how can you tell that?

user55340

Data.se

ratchet freak

ah

user55340

data.stackexchange.com/programmers/query/209364/…

gnat

SO folks won by score on that "project idea" question: -13/-10. But we look fairly respectable. Deletion happened almost simultaneously, but I suspect that they cheated: our was clean by 20Kers while their was probably by a diamond (Robert cast last VtD over here, it's unlikely that he missed reference to SO cross-post:)

user20683

8:49 PM

OLD MONTEREY. Bulleit Rye Whiskey. Aperol. Regan's Orange Bitters. Tempranillo and Habenero Molasses.

user20683

Currently being served where a friend of mine tends bar

user20683

I've not had it but I suspect the idea will appeal to this crowd.

Telastyn

@JimmyHoffa - sorry, meetings. Log4net

Configuration over code.

durron597

9:04 PM

@MichaelT What is anon feedback?

@WorldEngineer Glad you're here. Do you recall why you protected this question but didn't close / delete / lock it? programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/140776/…

ratchet freak

@durron597 not logged in people voting up or down

user20683

@durron597 2 years ago so no

durron597

@ratchetfreak How do you vote up or down without being logged in? Vote up is 15 rep vote down is ~~150~~ 125?

ratchet freak

that's why it's kept separate

open another private browser window and check what you can do with the upvote and downvote arrows

durron597

I didn't even know that was recorded

@WorldEngineer Would you care to do something more drastic with it now?

@ratchetfreak It just pops up a "thanks for the feedback" signup link?

user55340

9:08 PM

Anon feedback. Used to be part of 10k tools.

durron597

Nooooooooooo my star

user55340

And repeating tutorials and Wikipedia basic comprehension isn't something Q&A is good at.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn I've heard lots of terrible things about configuration over code... but then I've manually switched the settings to turn on a trace logger publishing messages directly to me in the config file of a system that was producing an error, and used those trace messages to easily identify the issue without having to build or deploy a version of the code that wouldn't have been available without pulling from it's label and all the hassle entailed...

@Telastyn convince me, why do I not want to be able to change those xml config settings to tune up/down logging, and want to define the logging in code instead? "Convention over configuration" just hasn't yet made real sense to me...

user20683

@durron597 maybe

durron597

9:49 PM

So amazon web services has a package private class IteratorSuppport<T,R> implements Iterator<T>

However, none of it's methods take R as an argument or return it

Additionally, some of it's public API classes return instances of IteratorSupport instead of Iterator so you CANNOT mock it without PowerMock.

ratchet freak

wot?

durron597

user20683

10:27 PM

@durron597 "The Enterprise Java of Fantasy"

ratchet freak

10:38 PM

it starts out promising but then it bogs down until someone else took over

user20683

@ratchetfreak like I said, Enterprise Java :P

hichris123

11:13 PM

Okay, question time for those of you who were users back when it was Not Programming Related:

Were tool recommendation questions accepted?

(idle curiosity)

Jimmy Hoffa

when it was NPR I believe everything was accepted... Someone asked what they should name their cat..

Telastyn

@JimmyHoffa - Not sure I'll be very convincing with "in my experience" arguments, but that is one incident. I have seen so many others caused by the complication of needing to manage code in XML (but then change the code per environment); so much time wasted on regression testing something where the core code hasn't changed; all of the subtle bugs caused by code assuming configurations are static at runtime; all of the wasted time testing the combinatorial explosion of possible code configurations...

user20683

@hichris123 questions that were idle curiosity went

user20683

I wasn't around for that

user20683

I joined during the aftermath

user15026

11:17 PM

@JimmyHoffa I love that all I really know of the NPR days is that cat question

hichris123

@WorldEngineer Mm, okay. But were you deleting/closing tool recs in the aftermath? (or were you not able to close vote/delete vote yet?)

user20683

@hichris123 I wasn't 10k till shortly before I was mod

hichris123

Which was... 2013.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn ok, that's fair- I can totally see how that would be the case. Yet I can also healthily claim that can go blow itself on badly architected badly implemented code more than anything... everything I do in configuration pretty much all comes about in this way:

1. I'm designing a class to do Fwizzle Fwaz.
2. I'm not completely sure what server will have the Fwaz, and the Fwizzle should probably have an abort timeout, but I don't know what would be a good one
3. I'll just put the Fwaz URI in the constructor, and the same for the timeout. Let someone else deal with it.
4. I'm in an application that needs to Fwizzle Fwaz, but I really don't know where the Fwaz are, or how long the Fwizzle timeouts should be, I'll just read them from the config and hand those into the constructor, let somebody else decide.

I can definitely see the code explosion from configuration switching on/off shit and ending up with tons of dynamically possible code paths, but at least the way I tend to use configuration that's rarely the case...

user20683

@hichris123 and?

user20683

11:22 PM

bear in mind that I was in school until May of that year

user20683

I tended to focus on learning stuff on the site over janitorial work

Telastyn

How so, you now have 2 global inputs to your program that now have to be integration tested in every single environment you deploy to?

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn I suspect you've had classes at the low level tightly coupled to some configuration settings which is where you end up with configuration hell. My rule of thumb for configuration: It's read in main, and beyond main, nothing in the entire application knows about config other than it's constructor params

psr

@JimmyHoffa A new competitor to "convention over configuration" - "indecision over confusion" (the design is fine, it just needs a catchy name).

Telastyn

That is certainly better than the alternative. That sort of design I can live with, but still think it's troublesome.

(though largely unavoidable in any team setting)

Jimmy Hoffa

11:25 PM

@Telastyn I put validation in main - they're the server equivalent of command line args, you give a CLI app bad ones and it just spits out usage. At service startup, if it has a bad configuration setting I always fail early with a message "Jackass, the Fwaz URI is bullshit. Go die."

(all my error messages end with Go die. It's a rule I have.)

Telastyn

awesome, I could argue that main shouldn't know the validation rules for modules, but I don't really believe it.

:D

I need to remember that so I can convince others to do that instead of random configuration access.

though that doesn't really stop log4net blowing up at runtime or silently doing the wrong thing.

:/

Jimmy Hoffa

I think of it as the process validating itself before it boots. It needs to know: It's configuration, it's dependancy graph, and the entry point. Nothing about what actually occurs when it gets past that entry point, or any business logic, or anything of the nature. Just "I need these settings, these modules, and then I hand off to FwizzleFwazzler" - everybody else is module agnostic, configuration agnostic, and has it's own concerns

Telastyn

likewise.

though I usually try to make configuration implicit.

Main knows how to build the pieces and tie them together

hichris123

@WorldEngineer Oh, that was just me figuring out when you became a mod. :P (I've never participated on Programmers, so... I'm a little clueless)

user20683

@hichris123 that's fair

user55340

11:40 PM

@JimmyHoffa There was also the "who should be the patron saint of programmers?"

user55340

0

Q: What's the off-topic part of this question?

So I asked a question which doesn't jibe with the normal flow of questions on this site, but I don't think it is off-topic and I edited the question to specifically relate it to software development and appease even the minute details of the commentators to no avail I'd be tempted to ask "Why is...

discussion off-topic

user55340

programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/29326/… (10k link)

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Huginn, clearly.

Huginn and Muninn

In Norse mythology, Huginn (from Old Norse "thought") and Muninn (Old Norse "memory" or "mind") are a pair of ravens that fly all over the world, Midgard, and bring information to the god Odin. Huginn and Muninn are attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources: the Prose Edda and Heimskringla, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson; in the Third Grammatical Treatise, compiled in the 13th century by Óláfr Þórðarson; and in the poetry of skalds. The names of the ravens are sometimes modernly anglicized as Hugin and Munin. In the Poetic Edda,...

user55340

> The purpose of this question is to find someone out there to intercede for us and help our coding (not to magically align the bytes), to inspire our daily gind of software development by their lives of heroic virtue, to unite us under a common patron and to keep us on the straight and narrow path (i.e. don't be evil).

Jimmy Hoffa

@psr you know... I think this really kind of captures it. I really do take indecision as a sign I should elevate authority to a parent scope as it's likely not the immediate code's concern..

user55340

11:57 PM

@Ampt you should go visit Streator this weekend to get in on any celebrations.

user55340

(Its near Peru, Ottawa and Marseilles - not too far away)

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